


Carriage Return

by Zooey_Glass



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Weechesters, wee!Dean, wee!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-16
Updated: 2009-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:37:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zooey_Glass/pseuds/Zooey_Glass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>He leans forward and picks out the letters, one by one, S - a - m, each key striking firm on the paper. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Carriage Return

The typewriter's buried under a heap of other junk, tossed in the back room of the cabin Dad's taken for the summer. Dean hauls it out and sets it up, working patiently at the sticking keys with oil until they all press down, making a satisfying clacking sound like the ones on TV.

Sam watches, fascinated, bugging Dean with questions about what it is, what it's supposed to do. By the time he's done working on it, Dean's pretty damn excited himself. He tears a sheet of paper carefully from one of Dad's big notebooks - he and Sam have paper of their own, but he feels like the typewriter should have special paper, grown-up paper - and feeds it carefully in, watching it wrap neatly around the roller.

'Now what?' Sam says in a quiet voice, like he's in church or watching Dad cleaning the guns or something.

Dean stares at the clean sheet of paper, looks over the big, round keys, a shining yellowish-white like the bits on the handle of his dad's gun. Now that the thing's all set up, he doesn't know quite what to do next. But Sam's watching, eyes wide as he waits for Dean to show him what to do.

'Now you gotta write something,' Dean says. He puzzles for a second, then leans forward and picks out the letters, one by one, S - a - m, each key striking firm on the paper.

'Sam Winchester!' his brother says excitedly. 'It looks like a book! Now you, Dean, write _your _name!'

Dean hits the return key and slides the carriage carefully back to the start of the paper, then clacks his way through his own name. Sam insists on having Dad's name, next, and they spend the next couple of hours thinking up more things to type - the names of everyone they know, and jokes, and then a letter from Sam to Dean (which is kind of pointless, since Dean has to type most of it, but whatever).

The typewriter ribbon only lasts the afternoon, letters coming out fainter and fainter as they type until there's nothing left but the barely visible indentations on the paper. The lack of ink doesn't seem to bother Sammy. He stays fascinated, clattering out page after page for as long as Dean's willing to feed in the paper for him. Since the machine can't actually type anymore, Dean can't really see why Sam cares about the paper, but it keeps his brother quiet and happy, so he just goes with it.

Apart from keeping Sam supplied with paper, Dean more or less loses interest in the machine. It was getting the thing working that mattered to him - it's not like he actually wants to write letters.

Besides, there's no more ink.

* * *

They find the next typewriter in a junk store, shoved in with a jumble of cracked, mismatched crockery and games with half their pieces missing. To be exact, it's _Sam_ who finds it and drags Dean over to look, pleading with him to pool his money with Sam's so they can buy it.

'What the hell for?' Dean objects. 'You don't need to type your papers for school, do you?'

'I could!' Sam insists. 'And I could write letters, too. And Dad could use it for - ' he dropped his voice conspiratorially, ' - you know, _official_ documents.'

'It probably doesn't even work,' Dean grumbles. 'They don't mark stuff down for no reason.'

'But you could fix it, right?' Sam looks up at him with perfect confidence, a look that's become a lot less familiar since Sam started junior high and began questioning _everything_.

'Well - ' Dean looks at the machine. It's not like the other one he fixed - this is an electric typewriter, with a little screen where the words show up before they're committed to paper. Still, it can't be _that_ hard. 'You're gonna pay me back the money you owe me, you hear? And don't think I'm buying the ribbons, either.'

Sam just beams and carries the typewriter carefully to the counter, waiting with impatience for the clerk to ring it up.

It's a mark of how much Sam wants the damn thing that he _doesn't_ bug Dean about getting it working, just looks at him with wide, hopeful eyes every day when they finish school until Dean caves and starts tinkering. It doesn't take long before Dean's impatient on his own account, because there's something satisfying about working out all the different parts, figuring out which bits are mechanical and just need a little dusting and oiling to move smoothly again, and which have electrical faults and rely on Dean reconnecting loose wires and replacing fuses. It's the screen that gives him the most trouble: the first time he gets the power connected to it the display is marred by dark shadows that won't erase, and for a while Dean's afraid that the only way to fix it will be getting a new one. Then one day he's fiddling with something else and the whole screen goes weird, scrambled letters scrolling by, and somehow he must've stumbled on the fix, 'cause the next time he looks the screen is more or less working how it should.

Finally he gets the thing working, feeds a sheet of paper carefully in and types a few words to test it out before presenting it to Sam.

'Sam Winchester is a dumbass,' Sam reads out, rolling his eyes. He flips Dean off, then surprises him with a sudden quick hug. 'Thanks, man.'

Dean holds on for a second before wrestling his brother into a headlock. 'Best brother ever,' he says smugly.

'Yeah, right,' Sam says. He makes to slip out of Dean's grasp, but Dean's too quick, tickling him with quick jabs to the ribs so Sam's laughing too much to use his strength against his brother.

'Say it,' he says, tickling harder till Sam's squirming and crossing his legs.

'Best - brother - ever,' Sam gasps out, and makes a dash for the bathroom as soon as Dean releases him.

Later, Dean finds a note on his bed. He unfolds it to find neatly typed letters, the last word carefully underlined.

_Dean Winchester is a __jerk_.

In the end, it _is_ Dean who buys a new ribbon for the typewriter.

* * *

Sam's habit of questioning everything persists right the way through junior high: every other thing anyone mentions provokes a 'Why?' or a 'How?' until Dad and Dean have both been driven well beyond the limits of their patience. It's just like when Sam was four, except then there was some chance that he could be distracted or, at the least, that he would eventually fall asleep. Now he only stops asking questions in order to go away and do his own research, and then he comes back and drives them both even more crazy with long, detailed explanations of what he's found out and, increasingly, where they went wrong. Dean tries to tell himself it's just a phase, but seriously, he doesn't remember being this annoying when _he_ was thirteen.

It's possible that Sam only makes it to his fourteenth year without Dean actually gagging him because Dad works a couple of jobs with another hunter. They're talking over their plan, working out the finer details, when Sam wanders in. 'Why aren't you using salt?' he asks.

'Salt doesn't work for these things,' Don explains kindly. 'They usually turn up on the coast, they live in saltwater. It's got to be iron rounds for these.'

'Why does iron work?' Sam objects. 'It doesn't work for kappas, and these look practically the same.'

'They look the same, but they're not,' Don begins, and that's it, they're off, questions and answers back and forth until finally John has to recall Don's attention to the matter at hand.

'Reckon Sam's got more questions than any one person can answer,' Don says afterwards, and lets out a big belly laugh at the expression on Dad and Dean's faces. 'Well, he's a smart boy. I can lighten the load some.'

True to his word, when he moves on he leaves Sam with a neatly printed address. 'How about you write down some of your questions, son, send 'em to me. I've got too much time on my hands, these days.'

His truck's barely turned the corner before Sam's hauling out the typewriter and feeding in the first sheet of paper, shooting a triumphant look at Dad because he _is_ going to use it. He exchanges letters with Don for the next year and a half, mailing off fat envelopes of typed questions and ideas and who knows what else, and receiving replies from all over the country, Don's scrawl across sheets of motel notepaper or scribbled on the backs of postcards.

When Sam's almost fifteen, Don stops answering his letters. Sam keeps on writing, every month or so, until finally one comes back to him. Dad carries it in from the mailbox, hands it to Sam and puts one hand heavy on his shoulder as Sam reads the inscription: _Return to sender, address unknown._ 'I'm sorry, son,' he says. 'He was a hunter.'

Sam nods once, face tight with grief.

Later, Dean helps him pack up the typewriter and take it to Goodwill.

* * *

'I have to write back and accept.' Sam holds the letter tight in his hand, lines and lines of small type listing fees and dates and requirements.

'Guess you better take care of that, then,' Dean says. He claps Sam on the shoulder, the motion awkward and unfamiliar. Sam feels tense under his hand, the death grip he has on the letter communicating itself to muscles Dean's still surprised to remember his brother has.

'Guess so.' Neither of them have mentioned Dad, or what he's going to think about this, but Sam's voice has a note in it that makes Dean squeeze his shoulder again, natural this time. He figures Dad'll actually be pretty proud, but... Well, he can guess how that conversation's gonna go.

Spring to fall, Dean works every chance he gets, regular jobs as well as hustling pool and poker games. Whatever Sam says about a full ride, there's no way the school is handing out the kind of cash the other kids will have at a place like Stanford. Sam will need clothes and books and... stuff.

It's not till July, when Dean finds himself staring at a price comparison in some trade magazine, that he realises that what he really means by 'stuff' is a computer. He hasn't got enough money for a new one, though, not nearly. Dean wonders about secondhand, but it's not like they turn up in Goodwill, or if they do, then the kind of repairs they need are way beyond Dean's capabilities.

In the end, he just gives Sam the money, shoves it in his hand wrapped up in the page from that magazine. 'You better write, bitch,' he says, and Sam promises, fingers closing blindly about the bundle as he boards the bus.

Sam writes three letters, then switches to email. It's hard to check when you're on the road, though, and somehow it never quite sits right with Dean. It just doesn't seem _real_.

Eventually, the messages dry up.

* * *

The motel's a themed one, famous dead people or something. Dean barely notices when he checks in, mind working furiously on the message Dad left on his cell. Three weeks of silence and then this. He dumps his stuff and is about to throw himself on the bed - boots and all - when he notices the typewriter.

It's black and shiny, like something out of an old film noir, and Dean figures it's supposed to convince people this is where Raymond Chandler lived and died, or some shit like that. There's no paper or ribbon, and even if there was, he doubts the thing would work. He can't resist leaning in to poke at it anyway.

S - a - m, he taps out, and then realises what he's doing. He stares at the typewriter for a second, like the words are actually going to appear, then turns abruptly away.

'The hell with this,' he mutters, and grabs his jacket.

It's only a six-hour drive to California.


End file.
